local banya raises funds from Shrem Strategies

local banya raises funds from Shrem Strategies. E-commerce in India has come a long way and everyone in the city has the luxury to buy everything online. It may be apparels, bike accessories or grocery.

Many players like BigBasket.com, Zopnow.com, Aaramshop.com and LocalBanya.com are slowly dominating markets of Mumbai and Bengaluru. BigBasket.com and Zopnow.com have major presence in Bengaluru and moving towards Mumbai market.

local banya.com has a listing of 14000+ products on their website. User has to login to their website and order for required quantity. The company has provides easy payment option thru debit/credit card or net banking payments.

local banya has first provider advantage has database of 100,000+ loyal customers. The company receives 800 – 900 delivery order per day in Mumbai alone with average ticket size of Rs. 1,600. Majority of the orders are for groceries and staples followed by dairy products and household supplies.

The company was founded in 2012 by Karan Mehrotra, Chief Executive Officer, Amit Naik (Chief Technology Officer) and Rashi Choudhary (Chief Operating Officer).

Karan Mehrotra is a computer engineer, has a family business of FMCG distribution of Unilever India products. Amit Naik has rich professional experience. He graduates in Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science from University of Mumbai. Amit Naik did his Masters in Business Administration from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.

He is Six Sigma Black Belt certified individual. He did Six Sigma certification for process improvement in Larsen and Toubro. In 2010, he BRP leader, Scherzo for Directi, had very short stint of 10 months over there. In between he worked Freelance Writer for blog called Tech Talk, owned by Spenta Multimedia. He wrote many articles on Gadgets, Cars and bikes.

In 2011, he joined Google as summer intern. He developed predictive modelling and targeted sales for the company. In 2012, he moved to Komli Mobile as business Head and product manager – App Store Campaigns for some time. In 2013, he became Visiting Faculty – Online Marketing, Pricing Intangibles and Product Strategy in Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. In 2014, he co founded localbanya.com.

Rashi Choudhary is co founder of localbanya.com. She has graduation and Masters in Business Administration in Services Marketing Management from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research. She started her career as Management trainee in E & Y (Ernst & Young) and moved as Retail Inventory and Merchandising Manager in Raymond Ltd in 2007. In 2008 Rashi joined as Rashi Peripherals P Ltd as Retail Brand Manager till she co founded LocalBanya.com in 2014.

The company has received an undisclosed funding from Times Group’s Springboard fund. Prior to these funding they had received angel funding from few investors. In 2014, they received their Series A funding from Karamvir Avant Group for $5 million.

Recently they raised an undisclosed amount of funding as Series B funding from Shrem Strategies. However as per market talk, the funding may be in the range of $15 – $20 million.

With the funding the company has launched their services in Pune, further plans to start operations in major cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Kolkata by end of 2015. However the company had wished that they are planning to expand in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

“The launch of our services in Pune coupled with a fresh round of funding, sets us on our way to the next phase of our vision, which is to take our brand to as many Indian households as possible. We have gained a lot of experience here in Mumbai and feel this is the right time to expand our operations. If all goes well, we hope to be in four – five additional metros very shortly.” Rashi Choudhary said.

“LocalBanya is one of the established players in the online grocery segment in Mumbai having been in operation for close to three years. They have put in place an aggressive expansion plan for 2015 to take the brand across India. The online grocery market is set to grow very rapidly in India over the coming years and we felt now is a good time to get in. “ said Nitan Chatwal, promoter of Shrem Strategies.

Logistics and operations are core of services and pillars for any startups to keep ticking. Unlike other forms of e-commerce, grocery e-tailing faces wide variety of challenges over traditional forms.

local banya has tried to address most of these issues like delivery slots, multiple payment options and customer service team for managing orders and delivery of products.

However competition for LocalBanya is unlimited and many online grocers like BigBasket.com and Ekstop.com. Recently BigBasket.com received huge funding of $10 million from Ascent Capital and earlier they had secured some funding from Singapore based LionRock Capital.

The online grocery space did not attract much attention of venture capitalist; however it is getting changed with the success and aggressive expansion of BigBasket, LocalBanya, Ekstop, Peppertap and Zopnow, customer can witness lot of action. Also grocers like Freshworld.com have different approach of delivery model and have succeeded in securing venture capital from ex Infoscian Kris Gopalakrishnan.

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